1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a picture switching apparatus that selects a transition mode according to types of current and next pictures at the time of switching pictures.
2. Description of Related Art
A karaoke apparatus is designed to superimpose a word telop of lyrics to a background motion picture displayed on a monitor during the course of karaoke music performance. When performing no piece of karaoke music, the karaoke apparatus displays only a background video picture or reproduces a commercial message (CM) picture on the monitor in a vacant period between karaoke musical pieces so as to present horoscope, event information, music introduction and so on. The monitor of the karaoke apparatus may also display an alert picture to inform users of a credit shortage or a failure in the machine.
The karaoke apparatus thus displays several pictures in accordance with various situations, but does not take into account smooth and natural transition from a preceding picture item to a succeeding picture item at the time of switching the picture items. In other words, the karaoke apparatus merely conducts simple switching such as to execute end processing when the preceding picture is ended and to execute start processing when the succeeding picture is started. For example, a blue back frame may appear after the preceding picture is ended and then vary to a gray back frame before the succeeding picture is started. This causes the problem of unnatural picture switching, and is incapable of effective start of reproduction of the succeeding picture.